Is the News Driving Us Crazy?

Mar 6, 2014, 7:00PM to 8:30PM

Location

1200 Getty Center DriveLos Angeles, CA

Cost

Free

Details

We keep checking the news, but rarely question why we do it. We browse the headlines before bed and crave a fix before our morning coffee, even knowing that most of what we’ll get is bad—death, war, scandal, corruption—and that it’s unlikely to help us understand complex issues fully. Why do we find ourselves uplifted by tales of disaster, fixated on the love lives of celebrities, entertained by disgraced politicians, and bored by upheavals in far-off lands? Philosopher Alain de Botton, author of The News: A User’s Manual, visits Zócalo to discuss what the news is doing to our brains, our souls, and our views of one another—and to bring a measure of sanity to our news-addicted age.